NEW PLYMOUTH.

New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, Volume IV, Issue 323, 10 February 1844, Page 2

NEW PLYMOUTH.

[Etract from a private letter to the Editor.] New Plymouth, January 22, 1844. " We have had some difficulty with the natives. For some months past a. party of Maories living between the rivers Waiwaikaiho and Mougouraki, have been threatening to cut down some timber and bush belonging to J. G. Cooke, Esq., well known to you as one of our most intelligent and enterprising settlersj and on Thursday week (the 11th instant,) a party of about 200, all armed, appeared upon the ground; a portion of whom commenced cutting away within a hundred yards of Cooke's house. Our Police Magistrate lives at some distance from Town, so several hours elapsed before he arrived, with Mr. Creed, the Wesleyan Missionary, at the scene of action. He might as well have stayed at home ; for his utter powerlessness is well known to the natives ; and he and Mr. Creed were only jeered and laughed at. •'The natives kept • resolutely at work during the past week, and have destroyed a most valuable property in timber besides the beauty of the place. And this outrage has been committed on the property of one of the best friends the natives ever had, to whom they all looked for .protection when the Waikatos not • long ago menaced them with an inroad. It is to be hoped that they will be prevented from enjoying the fruits of their labour, and not be allowed to plant potatoes after they have burnt ojf the wood. I must not forget to mentiou that the natives were shown plenty of land equally good for their purpose, in the immediate neighbourhood of Mr. Cooke's farm bu^ they insisted upoa injuring the pakeha. On the 12th instant we had a public meeting, and to our address of congratulation to Captain Fitzroy, tacked a memorial about the native outrage, praying for protection, for justice, and for soldiers. Cook and a Mr. Thacker, who came here in the Himalaya, went in the Carbon to Mokau, intending to proceed in the same vessel to Kafia and thence to Auckland. We hear that the Carbon has been detained at Mokau by the natives, who have some quarrel with the supercargo ; and perhaps Messrs. Cooke, and Thacker, may hear of the Governors departure for Wellington, and so return to New Plymouth. We had some very good settlers by the Himalaya, and are promised more by the two next vessels direct from England. I think Taranaki is looking up, as they say, in the home market. Some of the wheat is smutty, and some, as well as the barley, prodigiously fine. Mr. Aubrey showed superb specimens of wheat and Mr. Chilman of barley, at our recent Horticultural show — which, . however, was rather a poor affair, the weather being very unfavourable. I hear that Mr. Shortland promised inquiry into the circumstances which led to Mr. Halse's removal from the Commission of the Peace, a very hasty and unjustifiable proceeding, if all is true that is current here about it. An inquiry some time since by the other Magistrates resulted in an entire acquittal of Mr. Halse from the absurd charge of haviDg abducted a native married woman from the Waikatos, the pretence for his dismissal. I saw something in your paper lately about the native reserves, and their mismanagement What is true about Wellington is equally so here. Nobody takes any care of them ; and then forsooth people complain that they are unproductive. If properly managed by & protector of aborigines, who should be a m& of some weight of character, knowledge of the world, and experience in affairs, the native property in all the settlements, might be made very valuable. We had been reduced to eat musty biscuit for want of flour — the stock being entirely exhausted, — when the Vanguard arrived on

the sth kistant, with ten tons ; most of which I am told, was. reluctantly purchased at a very high price. We suppose the Wellington merchants are resolved to get the Company to re-open their store to supply necessaries. Next year we shall 'have no occasion to go from home for flour. The Industry (a fortnight from Wellington,) touched here yesterday, on her voyage to Kafia. The Aurora, is daily expected from Kafia, on her return to Wellington ; and the Carbon -will probably call at New Plymouth on her voyage back to Nelson. She brought lime-stone and lime from Massacre, Bay, and ran upon our beach to be discharged. The -operation was performed speedily and safely, and at small expense. She is twice as large as the Finetta, whose master put a trumpery letter into the Nelson paper against New Plymouth, because he was required to do the same. The constable who took the last mail from this place to Waimate (60 miles) and returned with a very heavy bag, performed the entire journey in four days. - He came back by the new road behind the mountain ; which was almost perfectly dry. He only " wet his shoes" twice, when on that road.